‘Image Before Us’ Film Series Returns to The Cinematheque with Nettie Wild’s ‘The Fix’
Dean Wilson (L) and Ann Livingston (R) in Nettie Wild's Fix: The Story of an Addicted City (2002). (Image courtesy The Cinematheque)
Posted on | Updated
Curated by Harry Killas, The Image Before Us enters its sixth season celebrating films made by BC filmmakers following a two-year hiatus.
The sixth season of filmmaker and ECU faculty member Harry Killas’ curated series The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia will begin in March at The Cinematheque in Vancouver following a two-year pandemic pause.
The series takes its inspiration from a 1986 Colin Browne documentary titled Image Before Us, which, Harry notes, “urged us to look behind and beyond the screen, to the ideologies presented or suggested, and to the ‘off-screen side,’ to the stories that had been excluded or untold but should be told.”
Opening this year’s season on March 2 at 7pm will be Fix: The Story of an Addicted City, the award-winning 2002 feature-length documentary by renowned filmmaker and 2021 ECU Honorary Doctorate recipient Nettie Wild. The film follows Dean Wilson, a person who uses drugs and Downtown Eastside community advocate; Ann Livingston, a “clean-living Christian with a confrontational bent” and head of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU); and then-Mayor Phillip Owen, a conservative politician and “pillar of the Vancouver establishment who becomes convinced, to his political peril, of the need for progressive drug policy reform.”
Christian Owen (son of former Mayor Phillip Owen) as well as Nettie, Ann, Dean and Donald MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition are all scheduled to be in attendance at the screening.
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (L) and Violet Nelson (R) in the 2019 film, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, co-written and co-directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn. (Image courtesy The Cinematheque)
Next up, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open will show March 16. Co-written and co-directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (who also stars in the film) and Kathleen Hepburn, the lauded, award-winning feature follows a pair of women over the course of one night after a chance encounter brings them together.
Having focused in earlier seasons on BC films made by BC filmmakers about life in BC, Harry notes this years’ offerings from The Image Before Us include work from “BC-connected” filmmakers whose stories take place elsewhere in the world. Harry also encourages viewers to contemplate the value of reconsidering films from previous decades.
“While many films in this series are from the past, ultimately a film series with an historical focus invites us to ask: How can we look forward if we don’t know where we have come from?” he writes. “Look closely and find the connections—if you dare!”
Visit The Cinematheque online now to learn more about all of its programming, including season 6 of The Image Before Us.